I started in that time period. I remember Nike Waffle trainers, and using the second hand on a cheap watch my Mom got for me at K-Mart. Oh lord I don't miss the shin-splints of my youth. I love the modern shoes, and my GPS watch. But I still log my miles on paper, and still have never used heart rate for anything. All the sports drinks and fuels today almost make it feel like cheating in a marathon, compared to marathons back then with water and maybe gatorade every 6 miles or so. I remember the kids stationed every mile yelling out our split times. Then we would look in the news paper to see our names listed on the last page of the sports section.

I started in that time period. I remember Nike Waffle trainers, and using the second hand on a cheap watch my Mom got for me at K-Mart. Oh lord I don't miss the shin-splints of my youth. I love the modern shoes, and my GPS watch. But I still log my miles on paper, and still have never used heart rate for anything. All the sports drinks and fuels today almost make it feel like cheating in a marathon, compared to marathons back then with water and maybe gatorade every 6 miles or so. I remember the kids stationed every mile yelling out our split times. Then we would look in the news paper to see our names listed on the last page of the sports section.

My feet were too small to get into Waffle Trainers, but they made a kids' shoe called Nike Wally Waffle. It looked pretty much the same - but I was terrified that kids would realize it wasn't and make fun of me.

Quite a flashback to my early running days, even before Nike and Gatorade. You trained hard and you raced hard. You learned from experience or from talking with the veteran runners. If you were lucky you had a local club or at least an informal local group to train with. Despite The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, training alone was not as common in my experience as it seems to be today unless there simply weren't any other runners living and training nearby.

I never thought about breathing, foot strike, heart rate ,foot turner over rate or anything else.

I never thought about these things until I came here.

I have always been slow but never got hurt from my way of running.

If you are running with out pain should you worry about how you run?

If you are running purely for the enjoyment of running or for the health benefits, probably not. However, if you are somebody who enjoys the competitive side of racing (even if you are too slow to compete for age group or overall), then trying to work on specific aspects that can help you run faster for the distances you are targeting are part of the process.

I also think that some of these things (breathing, foot strike, heart rate, etc.) are all part of the enjoyment of running for some people.

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I never thought about breathing, foot strike, heart rate ,foot turner over rate or anything else.

I never thought about these things until I came here.

I have always been slow but never got hurt from my way of running.

If you are running with out pain should you worry about how you run?

If you are running purely for the enjoyment of running or for the health benefits, probably not. However, if you are somebody who enjoys the competitive side of racing (even if you are too slow to compete for age group or overall), then trying to work on specific aspects that can help you run faster for the distances you are targeting are part of the process.

I also think that some of these things (breathing, foot strike, heart rate, etc.) are all part of the enjoyment of running for some people.

I basically thought the same thing too regarding breathing, foot strike, Heart rate etc... when I first started running in 2003. I started out with a Local Running club who had this Annual training event to get you ready to do a local race that was 4.37m (7k) Boy was I a typical Noobie back then... but over time those things should settle into a prespective fit for each individual runner's abilities. some of us excel very well at running with no injury issues at all or very little. But there are a lot of us who by some means ...may not turn out to be runner's that we inspire to be? it's just doesn't happen. If we push ourselves too hard, too fast, too much, too soon...we will always wind up with some injury some where due to running... True, we can learn from each other, there are ways to improve our selves through wearing the right shoes, learning to breath, adjusting our gait... it too, may or may not work for everyone. I think the best thing to always remember is the "Too's " because if we aspire to be challenged and want to be competitive and to beat and win with our running... we first have to listen to our own bodies, because it's the one that will tell us what we are doing right or wrong in the end.

This is hardly a running-specific phenomenon. Is there a sport that has *not* evolved over the past 4-5 decades?

There is a reason records are continually broken. better training better understanding of the sport better equipment, better nutrition. Records don't get broken because people have magically gotten big faster stronger as time has gone by.

I keep it simple. I do read what people say and suggest here and consider it but 99.9% of the time I just ignore it and keep doing what I am doing. I am happy with the ability that I can still run after all of my wrestling injuries. So when I run, since I feel comfortable, no pain, and still place pretty high in races, I figure I must be doing SOME THING right. When I start feeling differently, I will experiment with suggestions.

This is hardly a running-specific phenomenon. Is there a sport that has *not* evolved over the past 4-5 decades?

There is a reason records are continually broken. better training better understanding of the sport better equipment, better nutrition. Records don't get broken because people have magically gotten big faster stronger as time has gone by.

In sprints and field events I would say the equipment (including track surface) has been a huge cause of the improvement. David Epstein writes about measuring the speed of Jesse Owens and Usain Bolt and a good chunk of the difference in times is from track surface. (this is a piece he wrote and is not in The Sports Gene).

I would also say that broadening of the sport, especially in distance running has led to improvements in performances.

Back to the OP: I started running about that same time (in fact 1977 exactly) and I did learn about turnover because it was a big deal in getting faster. Never worried about HR because there was not a good way to measure it during exercise (stopping and manually palpating is a terrible way to do it).

This is hardly a running-specific phenomenon. Is there a sport that has *not* evolved over the past 4-5 decades?

Yes it's Race walking! Since I have decided to switch over to doing race walking because of my Knee issues and pending surgery... I have learned a lot of interesting things especially when the Race Walking Races are Judged by sight from Judges posted along the courses. They Don't use electronic equipment to keep track of those who are doing it wrong? it's all by the sight of eye views mostly. Though I think once you get to the Olympic level of competition, unless the race is being brocasted and you happen to see a walker error? but then it has to be according to the oldfashioned sight by eye from the judges if they caught it? A very strange sport, but I like it because of the uniqueness of it.

Like with a lot of sports many people who become pretty competent at running early in life , maybe not gurus , but just having a pretty good idea of the basics had relatives who knew a thing or two about running.

My son for instance was an overstriding foot stomper , hunched over and contorted his upper body sideways when he sprinted, hangs his head down a little and hunches over at the waste too. His arms were all over the place. He has made a lot of understanding about that stuff in just a few runs. He made a ton of progress on the stride in minutes. He looks pretty good. We ran his 1rst 5k together and I gave him the best of RW forums the whole way.